


This Love is Silent

by kim47



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2012-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-19 06:25:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kim47/pseuds/kim47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She should have known.</i>
</p><p> </p><p><i>She </i>had<i> known, that something was off, at least. She knew he was hiding something. She just never imagined it could be this.</i></p><p>Despite Harvey's warnings, Mike tells Rachel the truth about everything. She's shocked, naturally, and more than a little angry, but she agrees to keep his secret, and even to date him.</p><p>So when they break up, Harvey goes into damage-control mode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Love is Silent

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://suits-meme.livejournal.com/10789.html?thread=3184421#t3184421) prompt at suits-meme (prompt is a little spoilery for the story.) Set after season two, episode two, and (obviously) diverges from canon from there.
> 
> A thousand thanks to [mskatej](http://mskatej.livejournal.com) for the beta, suggestions and help. You are fantastic, m'dear ♥

She should have known.

She _had_ known, that something was off, at least. She knew he was hiding something. She just never imagined it could be this.

“You’re what?” Rachel says, her voice somehow coming out calm, even though she feels anything but.

Mike’s staring down at his shoes, hands on his hips, and he licks his lips. He looks terrible, like he hasn’t slept in three days; pale, disheveled, dark rings under his eyes. As she watches, he clenches his jaw and looks up at her.

“I’m not a real lawyer.” He crosses his arms. “I didn’t go to Harvard Law. I didn’t go to law school at all.”

He’s speaking, and she understands the individual words, but it doesn’t make any sense, it couldn’t _possibly_ be true.

“I don’t understand, what, how...” She trails off, not even sure which question to ask of the hundreds forming in her head. 

“I should just tell you everything,” he says, and he looks nervous, but there’s a calmness in his eyes that she’s never seen there before.

“I think that would be a good idea, yeah,” she says.

And so he does, he tells her this utterly insane story, about a drug deal gone wrong, about meeting Harvey, about Harvey hiring him. He talks about all the times he thought he’d get caught, all the times he wanted to tell her. About forged records and Jessica finding out and Harvey convincing her to let Mike stay.

It is the most ridiculous shit she’s ever heard.

He winds up by telling her about Harvey ordering him not to tell her any of this. 

“That’s why I broke it off before we even got started,” he concludes. “That’s what I’ve been hiding. And I don’t want to anymore, Rachel, I don’t want to lie to you any more.” He leans back in his chair and takes a deep breath. He looks relieved.

There’s really only one thing in her mind to say to him, the only thing she can get out past the jumble of her thoughts and emotions.

“Get out.”

He grimaces. “Rach - ”

“I am not kidding, Mike, you need to leave right now.”

He bows his head and stands, pushing himself up off her armchair and grabbing his jacket. He pauses at the door to say, “I’m sorry, Rachel,” and then he’s gone.

Rachel sinks back onto her couch,doesn’t have any idea where to begin sorting out the tangle of her thoughts.

 _Sorry_ , Mike had said. For what exactly? Sorry that he lied to her, sorry that he took the job in the first place? Sorry that he’s a complete and utter fraud? And god, the idea that Mike, Harvey Specter’s little wonderkid, star of the associates, is a total fake is so bizarre that she starts to laugh. She knows she’s almost hysterical, but really, she thinks it’s excusable in the circumstances. 

She gets up and goes to the kitchen, pulling out a three-quarters-full bottle of wine. She’s going to need alcohol for this.

*

It takes Rachel a week to call him.

She sees him at work and they occasionally exchange polite greetings, but that’s it. He doesn’t push and she doesn’t reach out. Even a few days later, once she’s had time to process things, she’s still not sure what she wants to do. What she _can_ do, given that Harvey and Jessica already know, which is one of the weirdest parts of all this. She could just stretch her incredulity to believe that Harvey could do something like this; he can be reckless and brash, self-confident enough to try something like this. But Jessica? How the hell did they convince Jessica Pearson to keep their secret? 

Once she got over her initial shock, she was pissed as hell, and the feeling hasn’t gone away yet. That Mike, who hasn’t even gone to college, has her dream job, that he gets what she can’t have by virtue of deception is so fucking unfair she wants to scream. Oh, she’s seen him at work - he’s brilliant, no doubt, an excellent lawyer when his bleeding heart doesn’t get in the way. But she’d be a great lawyer, too, so why does he get this and she doesn’t? 

But the thing is, once she’s calmed down enough to think about it, she understands. Rachel’s heard Mike talk about his grandmother, she knows she’s the only family he has left, that Mike would do anything for her. And she understands that this is the kind of opportunity he never imagined he’d have, she can’t really blame him for jumping at it. 

Not to mention he must have been so bored, doing nothing with that brain of his, she isn’t surprised he would do just about anything to have a job like this, what he wanted so badly.

And, god, the worst part about it all is that she still likes him. He’s still funny in a dorky kind of way, and he’s still sweet and smart and big-hearted. And his occasional naivete makes a lot more sense now, which only makes it more endearing. He’s still not an asshole like Kyle. 

She still _wants_ him.

So she calls him on Friday night, exactly a week since he dropped the bombshell, and asks to see him.

“I’ll be over in fifteen,” he promises, and she hears him trip over something in his haste before she hangs up.

*

It’s closer to thirty minutes before there’s a buzz at her door and she lets him up. When she opens the door, he’s standing there, panting a little, an eager, slightly desperate look in his face.

She steps back and wordlessly gestures him in.

She’s poured two glasses of wine and set them on the coffee table in her living room, and she sees him eye them warily before he sits on one end of the sofa. She takes the other.

“So,” she begins, reaching for the nearest glass and taking a sip.

“So,” he says. He’s eyeing the second glass like he’d love to drink it but not sure he’s allowed. Rachel rolls her eyes and nods towards it. He picks it up and downs almost all of it in one go.

“Here’s the thing,” she says, without further preamble. He looks terrified now, and she doesn’t blame him. “I’m angry. You’re breaking the law, you’ve made me party to it. You have, basically, everything I want, even though you’re less qualified than I am. You’ve been lying to me since day one - ”

Mike opens his mouth to interrupt, but she silences him with a look. “Since day one, Mike, and yeah, I get that you had to, but you still lied. This is all...” She breaks off and laughs wryly. “It’s so ridiculous Mike, I can’t believe this is your life.”

He smiles cautiously, but says nothing. When she just looks at him, he clears his throat.

“So what have you decided to do? Are you gonna turn me and Harvey in?”

Oddly enough, she hasn’t thought much about how deeply Harvey is implicated in this. It’s a weird feeling, the knowledge that she has the power to bring down someone like Harvey Specter. 

“No,” she says, and the look that crosses his face is a mixture of joy and relief. “No, I’m not, for whatever insane reason.” 

He exhales and slumps back into the sofa cushions, all the tension draining from him. “Thank you, Rachel, you’re - ”  He reaches out, as if to grasp her hand, but stops abruptly and draws his hand back. “You’re the best, seriously, _thank you_.”

“I am the best,” she says, nodding. He manages a small smile, but can’t look her in the eye for long, biting his lip and looking down. She knows he wants to ask what about them, whether she’s still willing to try, and part of her is glad that he doesn’t. That he gets that that’s too much to ask, that he doesn’t _get_ to ask that of her, not after dumping all this on her. 

It makes it easy for her to slide down the sofa and touch his cheek, curving her hand around his jaw to tilt it up. Then she kisses him, slowly, and it takes him a minute to respond, one hand coming up tentatively to cup the side of her head, fingers sliding into her hair.

It’s a great kiss.

He’s breathing a little heavier when they part, and his eyes take a few moments to open.

“Really?” he breathes, lifting his other hand to cup her cheek. 

“I told you I’m the best,” she says, and he laughs and kisses her again.

*

When Rachel thinks about it after, she realizes things were good for exactly three weeks. 

For two weeks, they flirt and kiss and laugh and have a quite improbable amount of sex for two people who work the kind of hours they do. It isn’t unusual for Mike to crawl out of her bed at three in the morning to be at work by four-thirty to catch up on the work he’d put off to take her out on a date. 

She feels good about her decision. She respects him for risking everything to tell her the truth, and although it still doesn’t sit well with her, she wants to take a chance and try this with him, rather than push him away and wonder forever if it could’ve been something great.

They steal moments in the file room and the break room, and Mike finds ridiculous excuses to come to her office and flirt with her. She likes it when he does that, sitting across from her in her glass-walled office, eyes heated, words suggestive enough to make her shift in her seat. She likes the idea that anyone walking past can see them, and thinks maybe she has a little undiscovered exhibitionism kink.

Mike shows up at her door one night, ashen-faced, and when she lets him in and gives him a drink, he explains that he told Harvey about them, and the fact that she now knows everything. Harvey absolutely reamed him out, Mike says, questioning Mike’s commitment to the job and, apparently, to Harvey himself. 

“As if I’d deliberately endanger his career, after everything he did for me,” Mike says, shaking his head. He throws back the rest of the whisky, and smiles up at her. “God, I feel so much better already, thanks.”

She smiles and kisses him, and his hand slides up her thigh, and everything is good.

*

Their first fight happens at work, and it’s ugly. Rachel’s having a bad day - she’s been getting shit from the associates all fucking day, despite the fact that she’s doing about half their work for them, Louis has been riding her ass ever since she made a mistake in some research he asked her to do, and her mother just called and demanded to have lunch with her this week. So when Mike strolls into her office at six, she’s already in a terrible mood.

Mike is not. He’s clearly gloating, he’s got that fresh-kill look in his eyes that says he just did something awesome and lawyerly and he’s come to tell her all about it. She doesn’t really listen as he talks, eyes fixed on her computer as she nods when it seems appropriate. He’s going on about the intellectual property rights case he’s been working all week, and about how he did something amazing and Harvey said he was proud of him and _God, Rach, sometimes I really love being a lawyer_ , and she’s done with this (admittedly one-sided) conversation. 

“Okay lawyer-boy, story time’s over, some of us have work to do.” 

“Well, jeez, okay.” He holds up his hands. “Call me when you’re not PMSing.”

And she snaps, telling him he’s an asshole and to get out and not bother coming over tonight. He backs out of the room and she fumes at her desk, and totally fails to get through any more work that evening.

He brings her coffee and a pretzel and an apology the next morning. 

“I’m sorry for being a dick.”

She can’t help but smile at his directness. “You were, kind of,” she says. “But I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

He kisses her on the cheek sneakily, and she waves him back to work.

*

It’s Friday night and she’s sitting in a restaurant (picked by her, of course) waiting. Mike’s forty-five minutes late, and the waiter’s been eyeing her and her glass of water balefully for the last twenty minutes.

Her phone rings.

“Hey, Rach, I’m so sorry, I’m not gonna make it,” he says as soon as she picks up. She can hear music in the background, like he’s in a bar.

“Where are you?” she asks.

“Harvey and I took a client out, and I can’t get away, I’m really sorry,” he says, voice raised so she can hear him over the music. She sighs and sets her glass down on the table.

“Okay, sure, call me when you get out, if it’s not too late.”

“Mmhmm, yeah, okay,” he says, and she can tell he’s distracted, especially when he moves the phone away from his mouth and speaks to someone else. The conversation goes on for way too long and she hangs up.

She stays for dinner anyway and the food is fantastic, and she decides anyone judging her for eating alone in a nice restaurant can go screw themselves.

And when her phone rings three hours later, she ignores it and goes to bed.

*

Mike’s stressed as hell the next week. Nearly everyone at the firm has been working on a class-action lawsuit for nearly two months and negotiations have been heating up. Harvey’s been pushing Mike to find something in the defense’s case or the company’s records that will blow the case wide open and secure a win for their clients. 

Every time he’s busy like this, every time he’s stressed by a case, or complains about his workload, or cancels on her because he has to do something for Harvey, Rachel can feel the resentment curling under her skin. She actively tries to fight it, to push it away, but it sneaks into her thoughts anyway.

Rachel goes down to the file room on Tuesday afternoon to find Mike, wild-eyed and with highlighter all over his hands, looking like he hasn’t slept in about 48 hours.

“You okay?” she asks, handing over a carton of Chinese food and a Red Bull. He looks at her gratefully through slightly red eyes and cracks open the Red Bull, downing half of it in one go.

“Fine, I’m fine,” he says, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and smearing some yellow highlighter on his cheek in the process. “I just gotta find this clause in the contracts, I know it’s there, I _know_ , and it’s the key to the whole case. There’s just so much to read,” he says, sounding panicked. Rachel glances around the room, at the stacks and stacks of paperwork Mike has to get through, and wonders how she can envy him this job so much. 

It doesn’t change the fact that she does.

“Don’t kill yourself, okay?” she says, leaning down to kiss him briefly. He responds distractedly, reaching for another file.

“Uh huh,” he says as he opens it and starts to read. 

He doesn’t look up when she leaves.

*

By Friday morning, she hasn’t heard from him at all, and heads to the associates bullpen to make sure he’s still alive.

She stops when she enters the room, because Harvey’s there. He’s leaning over the top of Mike’s cubicle, looking at something on Mike’s desk, nodding along as Mike explains something to him. She stands and watches.

After a couple of minutes, Mike looks up and shoves at Harvey’s arm, who, in response to the prodding, moves around and into Mike’s cubicle. He perches on the edge of Mike’s desk and leans over his shoulder, obviously to get a better view of whatever Mike’s showing him. 

One thing about knowing Mike’s secret is that she _gets_ it a little better, the things about the way he and Harvey interact that used to confuse her, that never seemed to quite fit for a boss and his employee. For all his hero worship of the guy, Mike treats Harvey with a kind of easy disrespect and affection that you usually only see between old friends. And Harvey, for his part, indulges Mike’s insolence to an astonishing degree. 

Case in point, when Harvey finishes reading and starts nodding, he says something to Mike that clearly conveys he’s done a good job, given the way Mike breaks into a huge smile. Mike holds out his fist and Harvey, after a moment and a surreptitious look around the room, makes a fist and bumps it against Mike’s. He’s got a little smile on his face as he does it, and Mike’s doing the starry-eyed, I-wanna-be-just-like-you-when-I-grow-up face he wears sometimes around Harvey. 

When she sees them like this, she kind of gets why Harvey went out on a limb. There’s something about the way they work together, their easy chemistry. They make a good team.

Next moment, Harvey’s up and off, Mike stopping only to grab his messenger bag before hurrying off after him.

Rachel shakes her head and goes back to her office.

*

Mike comes over on Sunday night. They have dinner and watch a movie, making it halfway through before they’re stretched out on the couch, half-undressed. The sex is good; it’s nice to be close after a week with no time together, not to mention that Mike can do some pretty interesting things with his tongue.

After, Mike gets up and starts pulling on his clothes. 

“Think I’ll stay at mine tonight,” he says, looping his tie around his neck. “I’ve gotta be at work early tomorrow.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea,” she says, yawning. “I’m going in late, have an appointment in the morning.” Her couch is amazingly comfortable and she burrows a little deeper into the cushion. 

Mike bends down and kisses her cheek and she purses her lips vaguely in his direction. It’s not until he’s left and her apartment is quiet that she wonders if she was supposed to ask him to stay.

*

They miss lunch on Tuesday, because Louis walks into her office at eleven and drops a stack of briefs on her desk, demanding that she be done with them by the end of the day. Louis isn’t technically her boss, but he is a junior partner, and she tries to avoid being on his bad side. 

Mike’s disappointed when she calls to say she can’t make it, but admits he has more than enough work to get through himself. 

Rachel hangs up the phone and realizes this isn’t working.

*

She can’t remember how the argument started. It was probably something work-related, since that consumes 90% of their interactions, but what started as bickering in her office is a full-blown shouting match by the time they get back to Mike’s apartment. 

“You know what, Mike?” she says coldly, and she’s so angry she can feel herself shaking with it.

“What?” he shoots back, hands on his hips, glaring at her.

“I’m done.”

“Yeah, well maybe I am too.” He crosses his arms and leans back against his kitchen counter. “Maybe we never should have started in the first place. Not sure it was worth it.”

And that pisses her off, that he’d say that, after everything. Which is probably why she says what she does next.

“I mean it, Mike, I’m done. With you _and_ with keeping your secrets. I’m sick of it. First thing tomorrow, I’m going straight to Jessica. I’m gonna tell her that I know everything, and then I’m going to the New York Bar Association.”

His eyes widen and his posture changes abruptly, going from confrontational to panicked in a second. 

“Rachel - ”

“I’m serious, Mike, I am so sick of your bullshit. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

And she turns and leaves, taking great care to slam the door behind her. Mike follows her, of course, down the stairs and out onto the street, pleading her to reconsider right up until she’s in a cab and driving off.

*

Rachel wakes up the next morning feeling awful but it takes her a few minutes to remember why. When she does she rolls over, presses her face into her pillow and groans, and considers calling in sick and staying in bed all day.

Her morning coffee does nothing to alleviate the knot in her stomach. It’s an awful mixture of anger, sadness and just all-around shittiness that has her exhausted by the time she gets to work. She spends the first thirty minutes sitting at her desk staring at the first page of the contract she’s supposed to be editing without absorbing anything.

Eventually, more than a little miserable, she goes in search of some sympathetic company.

Donna’s at her desk, and she gives Rachel a smile the minute she sees her coming and it’s such a relief to see a friendly face. She slumps over the top of Donna’s cubicle and sighs heavily.

“If it weren’t 8:30, I’d offer you a drink,” Donna says, and yeah, Rachel really loves her.

“Offer me one anyway?”

“Three o’clock, you, me, McBurney’s.”

“You are a goddess,” Rachel says fervently. 

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not right now, no. Or ever, possibly. I kind of want to wallow, but I don’t have the time.”

“I’ll give you my keycard and you can steal breakfast from the partner’s lounge.”

“Marry me?”

Rachel loiters for a few minutes, touching random stuff on Donna’s desk (and it’s a mark of how terrible she must look that Donna doesn’t tell her to quit it) and discussing the outrageous perks the partners at Pearson Hardman enjoy. 

Ultimately, she can’t keep her eyes from straying to where she’s been trying to avoid looking, through the glass walls of Harvey’s office. Mike’s sitting on Harvey’s sofa, face in his hands and shoulders slumped, and she feels a tiny bit of vindictive pleasure that he looks about as well as she does.

“How long have they been in there?” she asks.

“About thirty minutes. Mike was freaking out for a while, but I think Harvey calmed him down.”

Harvey’s watching Mike with an expression Rachel can’t quite place. It’s thoughtful, and calculating, but there’s something else in it that she can’t make out. And his magical lawyer senses must be tingling or something, because he turns and looks straight at her, and his face immediately hardens into a cool and professional (and, yeah, kind of terrifying) mask.

“Shit,” she mutters. “I should get out of here.”

Donna nods sympathetically, whispers “three o’clock”, and Rachel retreats.

*

Rachel gets a visitor just before lunch. 

She’s finally gotten into a headspace where she’s able to work, no longer replaying yesterday’s argument over and over in her mind or distracting herself with mindless games on her phone. She’s just hitting her stride when Harvey walks into her office and sits across from her, totally uninvited.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

Harvey smiles at her, and she could almost believe it was genuine if she didn’t know exactly why he’s here.

“I won’t do you the disservice of beating around the bush,” Harvey says. “I know you know our secret.”

He doesn’t say anything further and Rachel leans back in her chair, resting her elbows on the arms. 

“And?”

“And, Mike is up in my office freaking out that you’re going to be heading to Jessica’s office any minute now. I, on the other hand, know better.”

Rachel crosses her arms. “Maybe I just haven’t gotten around to it yet,” she says sharply. Harvey doesn’t blink. 

“Rachel, you’re a smart woman,” he says, matter-of-factly, “and more than that, you’re a good person. You’re not going to bring down this entire firm just because you’re mad at your ex.” 

It rankles that he presumes to know her so well when they’ve never had any interaction beyond brief, professional encounters. 

She leans forward onto her desk and looks at Harvey closely. His posture is relaxed, as if he’s entirely confident that this conversation is going to go the way he wants it, but his eyes are way too sharp. 

“You seem to have me all figured out,” she says.

“I’m good at reading people,” Harvey says, and it such a fucking condescending slap to the face she wonders if he really meant to say it. And now she’s _pissed_.

“Maybe you are, Harvey,” Rachel says, narrowing her eyes on the final word, “but this isn’t about me. This is about you, and Mike, and Jessica, and the fact that you’re breaking the law. You’re committing _fraud_ , do you get that?”

He opens his mouth, no doubt with some smooth, smart-assed remark but Rachel is not in the mood to hear it.

“And do you know what Mike did? He implicated me in that. So no, this isn’t about my type, or about my relationship with Mike, or because I’m _pissed at my ex_.”

Harvey, to his credit, doesn’t say anything for a moment, just watches her carefully. And then he stands up and buttons his jacket, an obvious attempt to intimidate. He slips his hands into his pockets and looks at her. She doesn’t move.

“Nevertheless, I still don’t see you going to Jessica with this, let alone the Bar Association. That’s just not your game, Rachel.”

“You clearly don’t know me as well as you think you do,” she says, as calmly as she can manage. “And I think it’s time you left.” 

He turns to go, but pauses in the door. 

“And even if it were the kind of thing you’re likely to do,” he says, turning back to look at her, so fucking casually she wants to scream, “you wouldn’t do it, you know why?”

“Do tell,” she says sarcastically, even though she knows it’s exactly what he wants her to do. 

“Because if you do, I will _ruin_ you. Have a nice day.” 

And then he’s gone.

*

It’s hard to concentrate after that - Rachel’s still bristling with anger and annoyance an hour after Harvey leaves. There’s a tiny bit of fear there, too;  Harvey doesn’t strike her as the type to make idle threats, and she wonders just how far he would follow through. It’s beyond unfair, because she hasn’t done a single damn thing wrong in this situation. A couple of times she actually stands, determined to go see Jessica regardless, but she can’t follow through.

She wonders briefly if Mike asked Harvey to talk to her, to smooth the situation over, but quickly dismisses it. While she has no doubt he spilled everything to Harvey the minute it happened, threatening her is not at all his game. Harvey probably assured Mike he’d deal with it, it’s what Harvey does, after all - he fixes things, fixes people. He cleans up Mike’s messes all the time, and god, that just makes her even angrier, that he sees her as another mistake Mike made that he needs to rectify. 

Louis comes into her office after lunch and the look on her face must be a pretty accurate reflection of how she’s feeling, because he quite politely requests her help and then gets the hell out of there. She stares at the file he left and wonders how the hell she’s meant to concentrate with all this shit going on. 

Rachel takes a deep breath forces the irritation and anger aside, and focuses on the work. She knows this, she’s _good_ at this. It’s not a particularly difficult case, but it requires her full concentration, and she eventually gets absorbed in it, the rest of her problems receding to a dull ache behind her eyes.

The next thing that interrupts her is Donna turning up at her door at three, as promised, waving Harvey’s card.

“Let’s go, Zane, I need a drink possibly even more than you do.”

Rachel wasn’t expecting her to come. Donna is fiercely loyal to Harvey, they’ve been through a lot together, although Rachel’s never heard the specifics. She has her suspicions about their past, however much their current affection speaks more of a brother-sister type bond. She wouldn’t fault Donna for any of it, but she wasn’t expecting Donna to want to have anything to do with her, not after she threatened Harvey like that.

She’s so thankful she almost cries.

They’re three drinks in (and god, it’s so unprofessional, halfway to drunk and it’s not even four in the afternoon but she really, _really_ doesn’t care today) before Rachel’s tongue is loosened enough to bring it up.

“So how come you’re still talking to me?” she asks, head resting on her hand, arm propped up on the bar. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” Donna asks, cocking her head.

“Because of...” Rachel waves her hand around. “Everything. With Mike. And Harvey. You know, don’t you?” 

“Of course I know. I know all.”

“Well, then.”

“I’m staying out of this one,” she says calmly, signaling to the bartender.

“Why?”

“Because I like you. I told Harvey I’m not getting involved. You know he asked me to talk to you?”

“He did? Thanks,” she adds to the bartender, who’s replaced her glass with a fresh one. “What did he say?”

“He wanted me to sweet talk you into not saying anything. I told him I wouldn’t. He was pissed.”

“Donna, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to - ”

“Oh, no, don’t apologize, it was fun. He needs to be told no every once in a while, it’s healthy. Keeps him on his toes.”

Rachel just stares at her. 

“You know I know everything, right? About - ” she glances around and lowers her voice “ - about Mike and law school and Harvey knowing and the drugs and _everything_. I could get Harvey disbarred. Possibly arrested. Why don’t you - I don’t know, hate me or something?”

“Because I know you’ll do the right thing,” Donna says with a shrug. She sips her drink.

“Is this some kind of reverse - ” Rachel begins, uncertainly. 

“Hey, no. You brought it up. Look, I know you, Rachel. You’re not the kind of person to destroy someone else’s life just because you’re hurt. You’re sensible when you’re not angry. And so I know you’ll do the right thing.”

And she’s right, completely, even after her anger flared this afternoon, she still can’t see herself doing anything. 

“Did you tell Harvey that?”

“No. Like I said, let him sweat. It’s healthy.”

Donna really is a prince among men. Women. People. Whatever. 

“You’re amazing,” Rachel says, heartfelt. 

“I really am,” Donna agrees, and they clink their glasses together and drink.

*

The next day at work is quiet, but Rachel spends it trying to anticipate what Harvey’s next move will be. She’s going with one more round of threats before the blackmail begins.

He finds her in the copy room on Friday. She wasn’t been expecting another visit to her office; it’s her turf, and she already kicked him out once. She’s been around lawyers, and Harvey specifically, long enough to know he’ll go for neutral ground this time. 

“I spoke to Donna,” he says, without preamble. Rachel sighs and starts copying the second file.

“And?”

“She said you’re not the kind of person to respond to threats.”

“Which you should have worked out yourself from our last conversation.”

“It never hurts to get confirmation.”

“So, what, that was the stick, now I get the carrot?”

“I’m not going to offer you money.”

“Small mercies,” she mutters.

“Because I know you wouldn’t take it. But I do know what you want, Rachel. And you can have it.”

She puts down her stack of folders and turns to him.

“Do tell, Harvey. What is it that I want?”

“You want to be a lawyer.”

“And you’re gonna make that happen for me?”

He shrugs. “I could.”

“How exactly?”

“I know enough people to get you accepted to Harvard, regardless of your LSAT score. You guarantee that you will never repeat a word of anything Mike told you to anyone, and I can guarantee you a place at Harvard Law this fall.”

His expression is earnest, his posture open and inviting. He looks like he genuinely wants to help her, like she’ll be doing him a massive favor by allowing him to help her, and the whole not-screwing-him-and-Mike-over thing is just a fringe benefit. She wants to laugh. She’s being closed by the great Harvey Specter.

“Tell me this, Harvey,” she says evenly. “How many cases have I worked on for you?”

He looks a little taken aback. “A lot. You’re the best paralegal this firm has. Louis gets pissed every time I poach you from one of his cases, nearly as pissed as when I won’t let him have Mike.”

“I’ve worked here for five years, with you for many of them, and you don’t know me at all. If you knew the first thing about me, you’d know that I like to earn what I get.”

It barely makes him pause. “Do you really think you haven’t earned the right to be a lawyer? I’ve seen your work, you’re better than half the lawyers here. More. Testing well isn’t the same as being smart, and you’re smart, Rachel. Let me do this for you.”

He’s good, he really is. She’d almost convinced.

Almost.

“I get that you and Mike can convince yourselves that what you’re doing is okay,” she says, gathering up her stack of papers. “I get that you think he deserves the chance to be a lawyer, hell, I agree with you. But you don’t get to decide that you don’t have to play by the same rules as everybody else just because you don’t want to.”

He looks, briefly, stunned.

“And when I’m managing partner of my own firm, I’m going to know that I worked hard, that I earned it, and that I didn’t have to cheat to get it.”

Leaving him standing, speechless, in the copy room, is every bit as satisfying as she imagined.

*

Donna comes over on Saturday night and they eat shitty take out and watch bad action flicks and almost manage to avoid talking about work. It’s the most relaxed Rachel’s felt in a really long time, pretty much since before Mike came into her life.

“Here’s what I don’t get,” she says eventually, when they’ve drunk a bottle and a half of wine. Donna looks at her, eyebrow raised.

“Why is Harvey doing all of this?” 

“All of what?”

“Everything,” she says, waving her hands. “I get that Mike’s a genius, that he’s Harvey’s pet project. I get that he and Mike work well together, that he thinks he’s forming him into the next, well, Harvey Specter. But, at the end of the day, isn’t Mike way too big a liability? I mean, there’s no real evidence that he knew about Mike’s history, and I’m pretty sure Mike would do anything he could to keep Harvey from getting into trouble over this. Why doesn’t he just cut Mike loose?”

“Harsh.”

“I know, but this is Harvey. I’ve seen him be ruthless.”

Donna looks thoughtful for a moment, then she says, “I know what you’re saying. But it’s something that’ll make more sense when you work it out for yourself. And you will.”

“I will what?”

“You’ll get it. I guarantee it. By the end of, oh, next week, it’ll make sense to you. Just listen to Harvey when he talks.”

And she refuses to say anything more on the subject.

*

On Tuesday morning, Rachel goes in to work early. She’s been understandably distracted lately, and her work’s been suffering. She needs to get in a few extra hours to sort out the mess her personal life has made of her work.  As she rides up in the elevator, she plans her day, what’s priority, what’s easy, what she can put off. 

Her schedule pretty much goes out the window when she finds Harvey sitting in her office. 

It’s 6:30 am. She’s fairly sure he hasn’t come in before ten since he made senior partner.

“Good morning,” she says, determined not to show her surprise. Conversations with Harvey are like a battle, and it pays never to have your guard down. 

He doesn’t say anything, just watches as she sets down her bag and shrugs off her coat and sits down. 

“What do you want, Harvey.” Offense is good. Better than starting on the back foot.

“I’m here to apologize.”

She’s sure she heard wrong. Harvey Specter does not, in her experience, apologize.

“I’m sorry?”

“I think that’s my line,” he says, and it’s weak, but she laughs, more out of disbelief than anything. They don’t say anything for a minute - she looks at him, and he carefully studies the painting over her left shoulder.

“You’re here to apologize?” she prompts finally. He takes a deep breath.

“Yes.” God, this is going to be like getting blood out of a stone.

“For?”

He looks at her, finally, and sits up straighter, more like the Harvey she knows.

“For threatening you, and trying to bribe you. It was beneath me, and beneath you, and I’m sorry.” He’s speaking more like himself now, firm and confident. She guesses he doesn’t apologize much, but it’s good, it makes him sound more sincere. It makes it seem more like he’s not here on an order from Jessica or Donna, he’s here because he really is sorry.

She still doesn’t get it, but she rolls with it.

“Thank you,” she says.

They sit in silence for another minute, before he stands, wandering around behind the chair, and starts pacing her small office. 

Rachel is starting to feel like she’s been dropped in the twilight zone. 

“Was there...something else?” she asks eventually. 

He stops moving and puts his hands in his pockets. His jacket is slung over the back of the chair, he’s just in his vest. 

“I wanted to ask you to do something.”

“Go ahead.” She’s feeling more and more nonplussed by the second.

“Please don’t tell anyone what Mike told you.” Rachel stares at him for a moment.

“That’s it?”

He shrugs. “That’s it. I don’t have anything to offer you. I’m not going to do anything to you if you go the the Bar Association. But I’m asking you, please don’t do it.”

He’s looking straight at her now, square in the eyes. Nothing about him suggests that this is a game, that he’s playing some angle she can’t see. His voice is a little different, too. It’s firm and confident, yeah, but it’s quieter than usual. It’s not his lawyer-voice, she realizes. This is just Harvey. 

“I don’t get it,” she says warily.

“I know that you think I’m a hardass. And I am,” he says. “I know you don’t have any reason to care about what happens to me. But, please, for Mike’s sake, don’t do it.”

That’s three pleases in as many minutes. When she doesn’t respond, he keeps talking.

“This job is everything to him, you know that. And yeah, I gave it to him, but he’s also in this mess because of me. And his own ridiculous belief that people are fundamentally good, but it’s at least partly on me. You know him, you liked him enough to go out with him, you know what this would do to him.”

It’s the longest she’s heard him speak on anything other than a case, and the clarity and sincerity of his voice is more than a little alarming. He looks like he’s...feeling something, and whether it’s agony over having to apologize or something else, it doesn’t look pleasant. 

“Rachel. Do I need to beg? Grovel? Is that what you want?” And he spreads his arms, like he’s willing to do it, like he’s willing to get down on his knees and beg, and, suddenly, she gets it.

The looks, the banter, the irrepressible affection between them, even when he’s reaming Mike out for getting emotionally involved or when he’s punishing Mike for his insubordination by sticking him with Louis for a week. The way he looked at Mike, that day in his office, when Mike couldn’t see, that expression she couldn’t place. Why he’s never once indicated that he would do anything but leave with Mike, if it were to come to that. 

Harvey’s in love with him.

“Holy shit,” she breathes, eyes wide, and Harvey flinches. Just barely, but it’s there. He clearly knows she’s figured him out.

“Why haven’t you...” she lets it trail off. Because really, she’s seen him at work and knows his reputation. He flirts with everyone. Rich, incredibly handsome, charismatic; he is, by all accounts, a expert seducer. And Mike already worships the ground he walks on, she’s pretty sure he’d barely have to lift a finger to get him into bed.

“I know you don’t have a high opinion of me, Rachel, but I draw the line at sleeping with people who work for me,” he says, which is bullshit, she knows of at least one associate he’s slept with. 

“You’re deflecting,” she says, leaning back in her chair. It’s hard not to enjoy this a little. “And I think I know why. It’s because it’s not about sex. If you just wanted to sleep with him, you’d have done it already, but you really are _in love_ with him. You don’t want the sex if that’s all you’re gonna get, and you’re not sure he feels the same way.”

“Rachel - ”

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“This is not at all relevant.”

“Maybe not, but it’s interesting,” she counters. Shit, Harvey Specter in love, who’d have thought. “Does anyone else know?”

“Donna,” he says reluctantly. Of course, she should have known.

“And are you ever going to tell him?”

“If I answer your questions, will you agree to do what I asked?”

“Oh, so we’re back to negotiating?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

Rachel gives him a look.

“Fine. No, I’m never going to tell him, and he’s never going to find out,” he adds, frowning at her. 

“Why the hell not?” She stares at him. Things may not have worked out for her and Mike, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t think he deserves to be happy with someone else. And the more she thinks about it, the more it makes sense, the idea of him and Harvey together. They already bounce off each other so well, and god, if anyone ever loves her half as much as Harvey appears to love Mike...

“Look, Mike owes me a lot. He never acts like it, he’s great at hiding it, but deep down I know he feels obligated to me. I’m not going to play off that gratitude and obligation, or try and coerce someone in my power - ”

It’s a good point, although she doesn’t think Mike would be likely to mistake his feelings of obligation for something more. She knows he knows and trusts Harvey well enough that he wouldn’t coerce him into a relationship because he holds so much power over him. 

“I get it. I think you’re wrong, but I get it. And for what it’s worth, I think you have a shot. I have no idea if he feels the same way, or could feel the same way, but maybe at some point, when he’s had a chance to get over me, you should take him out for a drink and find out. You might like what you discover.”

He stares at her for a long minute, then nods, tightly.

“Can this excruciating conversation be over now?”

Rachel laughs. It’s real and unforced now.

“Sure.”

“You’re not going to tell?”

She shakes her head. “I never had any serious plans to.”

That gets her a Look. 

“Really. Mike hurt me, and I’m still mad at him, but I don’t want to ruin his life. Or yours,” she adds. “I’m pissed at what the two of you did - are still doing. I think it’s unfair and wrong. But if you get caught, it’s not going to be because of me.” 

He stands and, hesitating only for a moment, extends his hand. She shakes it firmly.

“Harvey?” she calls after him, just as he leaves. There’s something that’s been bothering her since she found out about all this.

“Yes?” he says, stepping back into her office.

“What did you say, to convince Jessica to keep Mike on?”

“I told her if she fired him, she’d have to fire me, too, and she - ”

“Needs you on side because of Hardman coming back,” she finishes, nodding. “Shit, Harvey. You really ought to tell him.”

He shakes his head, smiles at her, and leaves.

Rachel sits back in her chair, shakes her head, and gets back to work.

***

She and Mike slowly learn how to be friends again. She’s glad of it, because he’s funny and great company. He flirts with her, but it’s more of a reflex than anything else, and she sternly doesn’t allow herself to read anything into it. 

She goes on a couple of dates, people from the website, and although there are no real sparks, she makes a few friends and realizes how much she’s missed having friends who are not at all connected to her work.

Donna continues to take her out for drinks on Harvey’s card, continues to be terrifyingly omniscient, and continues to be the best friend Rachel’s ever had. When Rachel gets her results (one hundred and seventy fucking two, which means she’s going to law school, hell _yes_ ), Donna gives her a hug, an expensive dinner in a new, upscale restaurant, and a huge bottle of Jaegermeister. They get fantastically drunk, and she finally gets the entire story about her and Harvey out of Donna, only to forget all but the haziest details by the next morning. 

Mike tags along on their bar hopping, occasionally. The three of them form a weird kind of friendship, a large part of which consists of complaining about Harvey. She’s seen Harvey eyeing them warily when they all meet at Donna’s desk before going out, and seems to take great pleasure in handing Mike a task just as they’re all about to leave, forcing him to catch up with them two hours later and bitch for thirty minutes about what a taskmaster Harvey is. 

Rachel watches them closely now, she can’t help it. Knowing what she knows colors how she sees all their interactions, and she can’t miss the way Harvey’s eyes linger when Mike looks away, how he’s taken to clapping Mike on the shoulder, or standing a fraction closer. Twice she catches him blatantly checking out Mike’s ass and she smirks. 

Mike’s harder to read. He doesn’t date at all, as far as she knows, far too busy to meet someone new, and appropriately wary of dating in the workplace since they broke up. He certainly spends more time with Harvey than he does anyone else, and he’s improving in leaps and bounds. She doesn’t like everything about it, how hard and calculating he can be, and she’s afraid of him turning into Harvey a little too much. But they seem to find a balance, where Mike still works pro bono cases in his free time and empathizes more than he should with the clients, but knows when to be a hardass and unshakeable in the name of winning it for the client.

She can’t tell, she really can’t, if he’s interested in Harvey. He looks sometimes, appraisingly. He watches Harvey, and he certainly talks more about Harvey, than he does anyone else. But she can’t tell where the line is between Harvey being his boss/mentor/best friend and the possibility of something more.

In the end, he answers her question pretty clearly. It’s nearly ten and they’re in their favorite bar. Donna’s at the the other end, being flirted with by someone who looks like a stockbroker. She’s nodding along as he talks, but making faces at Rachel at every opportunity. Mike’s weirdly quiet tonight - he’s pretty drunk, not enough to make him ridiculous, but enough that he’d normally be babbling endlessly. 

And then Harvey turns up. They’ve invited him along before, and he’s always not-so-politely declined. From the look of things, he’s not here to accept this time either; he’s holding a tan folder in one hand and his phone to his ear in the other, and he’s making a beeline straight for Mike, despite it being ten on a Friday night. Apparently Mike is going back to work.

Mike doesn’t notice until he’s right there, tapping Mike’s arm and nodding at Rachel. He’s still got his phone to his ear, but is clearly on hold and none too happy about it. The minute Mike sees him, his whole face lights up.

“Harvey!” he says happily, attempting to stand but getting his legs tangled in the feet of his barstool and Rachel’s reassessing how drunk he is. He has no problem using Harvey to right himself, draping an arm over his shoulder and pulling himself up. They end up face to face, inches apart and Mike just _stares_ for a moment, and Harvey looks right back. And then, right in the middle of the crowded bar, Mike leans in and kisses him. He slides an arm around Harvey’s waist and tilts his head and absolutely goes for it. Harvey just stands there, letting it happen, not responding, and it’s so un-Harvey like that Rachel can only imagine he’s as caught off-guard as she is.

She can see Donna over Harvey’s shoulder, staring, not even pretending to listen to Mr Wall Street anymore. She catches Rachel’s eye and mouths “oh my god” at her.

Mike is just starting to pull back, clearly having maxed out his tolerance for rejection, when Harvey seems to snap out of his daze, and he leans into it, kissing Mike back, the arm that was holding his phone sliding around Mike’s shoulders and pulling him closer. 

It’s starting to venture into uncomfortable to watch territory when they break apart. Mike grins at Harvey, who looks a little shellshocked. And then Mike stumbles, and Harvey sighs, and Rachel can tell he’s writing this off as Mike being drunk and stupid. She doesn’t think it matters, really. The first move has been made, it’s only a matter of time until they figure things out.

“C’mon, Mike, back to work,” Harvey says, as if nothing happened, and leads Mike out of the bar.

Donna sidles up to Rachel and grins at her.

“Well,” she says pointedly, and Rachel laughs.

“I’ll drink to that.”


End file.
